PACKED FOR THE WRONG TRIP: A NEW LOOK INSIDE ABU GHRAIB AND THE CITIZEN-SOLDIERS WHO REDEEMED AMERICA’S HONOR

By W. Zach Griffith

Arcade Publishing, 2016

235 pages, $24.99

In January 2004, 120 soldiers of the Maine National Guard were all set to go to Afghanistan as a combat arms field artillery unit. Then in February, at the last minute, the unit was suddenly sent to Iraq to perform military police duties guarding insurgent detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

“Packed For The Wrong Trip” is an apt title for this exceptional true story of Maine artillerymen performing well in a fluid combat zone without the proper training or equipment to be MPs.

Portland journalist Zach Griffith is an award-winning combat correspondent, and this is his first book. He tells the remarkable story of the men of the 152nd Field Artillery Battalion thrust unexpectedly into a role they are ill-prepared to conduct. The result, however, is a success story revealing how soldiers adapt, persevere and overcome obstacles with sound, innovative and determined leadership.

These Maine men had the unenviable mission of correcting the shameful prisoner abuse that outraged the international community. Griffith tells how they cleaned up the filthy, disease-ridden conditions and improved medical care and food, creating a livable detention facility for prisoners and guards. They also had to control and protect the unruly, hostile prisoners, and they did all that while under constant enemy observation, frequent sniper fire and mortar and rocket attacks.

The soldiers figured it out quickly: cease “intense methods of detention and interrogation,” and add a little humanity to a miserable situation. And it worked. Griffith is harshly critical of the U.S. Army for its poor planning and myopic lack of support for this unit, but he clearly has high (and well-deserved) praise for the soldiers and their efforts. The unit came home a year later and was awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation. The artillery unit has since been redesignated.

HARD LIGHT: A CASS NEARY CRIME NOVEL

By Elizabeth Hand.

Minotaur Books, 2016

359 pages, $25.99

Award-winning Maine author Elizabeth Hand has written 17 novels, but none more creepy and dark as the three mysteries featuring Cassandra Neary, a pill-popping, alcoholic photographer stumbling from one bad situation to another.

“Hard Light” is the third book in Hand’s Cass Neary series, following “Available Dark” and “Generation Loss.” Like the others, this story is coarse and profane, filled with alcohol and illegal drug abuse, nasty characters, unpleasant behavior and, of course, murder.

Hand’s vivid imagination, complex plot, crude dialogue and grim atmosphere deserve a warning. This is definitely not a “cozy” mystery. It is, however, a gripping story revealing a pathetic, drug-laden, dissolute subculture few rational people would choose.

Cass is an American in her 40s, an admitted “burned-out underachiever” on the run from the Maine State Police and Interpol cops who want to ask her some thorny questions about dead bodies in Maine, Finland and Iceland. She sneaks into London on a stolen passport, hoping to link up with her boyfriend, but instead finds herself mixed up with a brutal gangster, stolen antiquities and a dangerous collection of unstable faded rock stars, failed movie makers and petty criminals. This is a London tourists would never want to see — dirty, decayed, doped up and depressing.

Cass is always around when somebody gets killed, so when bodies pile up in London, she goes on the run to gloomy Cornwall with a man she can’t trust, hoping to avoid the police and whoever is now trying to kill her. And Cornwall is no sanctuary. It is even more dangerous and deadly.

Cass is an anti-hero, whose entire being is fueled by booze and pills, but she is a gritty survivor: “I’m all for chaos, but only if I have a good view of the exit.”

Bill Bushnell lives and writes in Harpswell.

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